Press Release: AMD to Make Significant Corporate Announcement

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne
so is PC gaming going to die? i thought it was still a fairly profitable market with MMORPG's like WOW and stuff?

WoW can run on a 5 year old video card so it's not really driving the high end card market. In fact the only thing driving the high end video card market was the pissing match between ATI and NVIDIA.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: 5150Joker
I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it...the writing on the wall for the death of PC gaming has been there for sometime...

Of course we are not even seeing good DirectX 9.0C (SM 3.0) games yet and with DirectX 10 (SM4) cards coming, the hardware is years ahead of the software.

ATI and NVIDIA were worth about the same, however MS has sooooooo much extra cash to throw around that they could buy NVIDIA with the money in Bill Gates couch cushions.

(Wish I had money to buy nV stock )

Yep I'm thinking nVidia is going to be awesome for investment especially if MS decides they want in-house expertise to finish off Sony, Apple and Nintendo in one swoop. Think about it, Sony is already limping from their Cell disaster and had to come crawling to nVidia for help, if nVidia is taken out of the equation by MS then Sony is in hot water. Anyway I wouldn't mind seeing MS win the console wars since I know they're still a PC centric company so perhaps there is hope for us PC gamers yet.

 

[Elfear]

Well if AMD decides to cut spending to ATI's R&D department than gamers will be in a world of hurt. Personally, I could care less if the cpu race grows more intense. They weren't the bottleneck for what gamers do. GPUS are, so it will be a sad world for gamers if ATI (probably soon to be AMD) quits making high-end video cards. As others have mentioned, products from a monopolistic producer generally fall short of products produced in a very competitive market. So we can expect Nvidia products to take a dive too if this is the case. Heck, what can consumers do if Nvidia decides to sell the "Dumpforce 9900" in the future? If they are the only supplier of high-end video cards than the answer is nothing. We get to pay $600+ for the FX5200 of the future.

This is taken from the consumer point of view. I'm sure the suppliers have a different perspective as their top priority is making money and they will divert resources to the areas that will yield the most profits for them.

 

[jlbenedict]

AMD definately knows when to time their announcement.

Intel's formal release of Conroe is July 27th (Thursday) and AMD then announces this on Monday. I wonder if that is a coincidence that AMD planned it for this week..possibly..
can't have Intel getting all the attention this week, right

 

[Hard Ball]

Originally posted by: Elfear
Well if AMD decides to cut spending to ATI's R&D department than gamers will be in a world of hurt. Personally, I could care less if the cpu race grows more intense. They weren't the bottleneck for what gamers do. GPUS are, so it will be a sad world for gamers if ATI (probably soon to be AMD) quits making high-end video cards. As others have mentioned, products from a monopolistic producer generally fall short of products produced in a very competitive market. So we can expect Nvidia products to take a dive too if this is the case. Heck, what can consumers do if Nvidia decides to sell the "Dumpforce 9900" in the future? If they are the only supplier of high-end video cards than the answer is nothing. We get to pay $600+ for the FX5200 of the future.

This is taken from the consumer point of view. I'm sure the suppliers have a different perspective as their top priority is making money and they will divert resources to the areas that will yield the most profits for them.

It's not quite as gloom and doom, if AMD-ATI quits the high end discrete graphics cards market. Since the reason why AMD would do that is that it plans on fairly high performance integrated, and Direct Connect solutions for their platform. And Intel is definitely in the planning stages of such operations as well, and their integrate graphics is going to get an unprecedented boost in power.

If both of these pan out, we could easily see integrated solutions in the X1400/7400 echelon (as compared to the generation at that time) in 12-24 months. And with Torrenza platform coprocessors, you will certainly see some high-mid range capabilities, in the same market segment of X1600/7600 or so, and perhaps even higher. Although in the medium term, these still don't compete with the ultra-high end, since they won't have the memory bandwidth or latency of dedicated cards. You may even see a few HTX solutions from both AMD-ATI and NV to go to the very to end.

So essentially, there should be more competition from Intel, AMD-ATI, NV, S3, etc in most segments of graphics development. The only place where you see less competition is the high-end gaming segment, comparable to X1800XL/7800GT and up in today's segmentation of the market. While NV will probably own that for a while, it would be in need to keep substantial distance between their high end discrete cards, and the performance of high end integrated solutions, to justify the multi-hundred dollar premium that gamers would have to pay. So they will still need a pretty rapid pace of development, but probably not as urgent as now.

And in the long term future, GPU will probably be folded back into the CPU/Platform, with the goemetry pipeline probably going that way first; so NV will eventually (in about 5 years or so) start shifting their strategy to coordinate more with some future version of Torrenza coprocessors, to be able to compete on a permanent bassis. The eventual demise of high end PCIe or other peripheral interconnect cards for GPUs looks more inevitable with every new developement in the industry.

 

[kobymu]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Upon further reflection, I don't think AMD personally gives a toss about ATi and their graphics technology (or its potential for chipset integration). What they are really after IMO is the technology sharing agreement between ATi & Intel. The rest is just an unexpected (and burdensome) bonus.

WTF?!?!?

Are you saing that AMD just paid MORE THEN 5,000,000,000 $$ for the thechnology that Intel share with Ati. . . .

?!?!?!?!?

edit
i know you are a fanboy but DAMN(!) that is the most stupid post i have ever seen.
Just what kind of tech do you think Intel is sharing with Ati , the tech that gives Ati Intel bank account number ?

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Crusader, this thread could have been postponed until we actually "heard" or "read" said announcement from AMD. And why the heck are you so happy? Do you want to pay through the nose for an Nvidia GPU? They are expensive enough already. Without ATI, say goodbye to competitive pricing. Anyway, I'm even getting ahead of myself. Wait for the actual corporate announcement. If AMD does buy ATI, sure, it's good for AMD (I think) but it's really going to suck for gamers.

Agree with everything you said. Competition reduces prices. Look at the freaking CPU prices. It wasn't until Conroe that Intel really could compete with AMD on a performance scale and not a total sales scale. Once that happened all the CPU's mysteriously dropped by up to about 40%.

I really really really don't want to pay insane money because AMD shuts down the high end GPU development in ATI. As others have said, we really won't know what the combined AMD/ATI has in store for us but I'm hoping that they do not kill off high end GPU development and instead move ATI's low end GPU and chipset development to work on making better products for AMD's platform. Let's keep the high end GPU development as a wholly owned seperate division of AMD.

The nVidiots forget this is a huge negative for nVidia as this potentially means lots of lost sales in chipsets for nVidia. Motherboard chipset sales makes up a good chunk of nVidia's revenues as they are, and have been for a while, the preferred motherboard chipset provider on most AMD boards. And yes, I realize ATI now loses the Intel chipset business but the fact is that they potentially gain a large chunk of the chipset business now owned by nVidia.

Having helped my dad run a successful business (now sold) and now being in the real estate investment I can say that I probably have a better grasp of business and how to run one that most. For various reasons, it doesn't make sense to me for AMD to kill of ATI's high end GPU business. Consumer electronics was one of the bulleted points and I take this to mean gaming consoles so there is still room for high end GPU development. Gaming is also a bulleted point and similar GPU's can be used in consoles and high end PC graphics cards. This same work can also be used for the workstation line of cards since workstation graphics cards and consumer cards seem to mostly differ in driver development. It's likely the high end GPU work will be rolled into the 4x4 platform but trickle down to us "regular" gamers.

Gstanfor. AMD and Intel already have a pretty extensive technology sharing agreement so I'm not quite sure it's that. But I'm not into the nitty gritty of what is shared between AMD/Intel and what is shared between ATI/Intel so it's possible but I doubt it.

So...I do absolutely hope AMD does not kill the high end GPU development at ATI as this would be a loss for all of us consumers. I think in many ways this merger makes sense for AMD but not necessarily for ATI. I think that until the merger is finalized and we know where the new company is headed we are too early in predicting the demise of high end GPU's from ATI.

 

[Topweasel]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Upon further reflection, I don't think AMD personally gives a toss about ATi and their graphics technology (or its potential for chipset integration). What they are really after IMO is the technology sharing agreement between ATi & Intel. The rest is just an unexpected (and burdensome) bonus.

That isn't an issue at all because AMD and Intel have a long standing crosslicense agreement that goes back to the 70's. What this does is puts added pressure on Intel as they have been sacrficing CPU and CPU sales because of production requirements of their chipsets. SiS doesn't have the production to help, it will take forever for Nvidia to get a full lineup of chipsets for the C2D, if Intel allows them at all. I believe their current agreement only allows for a single chipset option available at one time. This is also due to both A64 success and outstanding Anti-trust suites, a time where they can't do what they did during the chipset shortages of the original Athlon days and turn down sales due to "production shortages" because they sell AMD products.

This Allows AMD to have a chipset design team for implementation of a few new techs, a All-AMD basic platform for low cost OEM products, and the basis for for devlopment of GoCPU (Graphics on Central Processing Unit). Nvidia has basically cared less about the Integrated market, they seem more worried about the Performance and mid range segment of every market they are involved in and market share onl matters in regards to profit which they ended up in the last 1-2 yrs more profitable then ATI. This is a win for everyone involved but Intel. ATI people gets but loads of money, AMD can appeal to Dell on Laptop and Desktop markets, Nvidia has less to worry about on their most comfortable perch. Over all Discrete card sales will drop greatly but even with that Nvidia will sell more cards without ATI then with.

 

[5150Joker]

I think I'd rather have seen ATi and nV merge to create a company that developed it's own CGPU's (along w/their own fabs) rather than what just happened...bleh.

 

[fierydemise]

Am I the only person who sees nVidia as the losers in this whole thing? AMTI is aiming for CGPUs in 2008 which theoretically will be faster then discrete GPUs, intel is very likely working on similar technology and will probably make it a top priority because of this merger. So by 2008 we'll be seeing unified CGPUs from both intel and AMTI which will probably wipe the floor with whatever discrete GPU nVidia offers. Basically nVidia needs to get onboard with a CGPU solution or be left behind. Atleast thats how I see it.

 

[videogames101]

High end computer gaming is about to die. If M$ buys Nvidia it will be an all out console war with little or any R&D in high end GPUs. If that doesn't happen, there is the possibility of NVIDIA having no reason to produce anything new until another company challenges them in the GPU market. Most of the world apart from all the high end gaming junkies on this forum don't even know what a 7900GTX SLI or 1900XTX Crossfire setup is. Theres no money in this market. ATI vs NVIDIA was the only thing driving high end GPUs, now thats about to die...

 

[fierydemise]

I don't get all this talk about the death of highend gaming, CGPUs are theoretically faster then discrete GPUs, so won't highend gaming be helped by CGPUs which are being pushed forward by the AMD ATI buyout?

 

[Overgloc]

Hmmm Socket GPU Anyone?? changing Video card like changing out CPU. AMD FTW

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: fierydemise
Am I the only person who sees nVidia as the losers in this whole thing?

Why? They are still keeping their AMD chipset business. They will now probably become the preferred dual card solution for Intel and Conroe. If AMD kills off the high end card buisness they will stand alone at the top. They could even pick up some ex-ATI talent. MS could buy NVIDIA for a huge chunk-o-change.

If anything this could be the best thing to happen to NVIDIA since 3DFX fell apart.

 

[Sonikku]

Originally posted by: Overgloc
Hmmm Socket GPU Anyone?? changing Video card like changing out CPU. AMD FTW

I got me an AGP socket.

Guess I have to buy a new motherboard, CPU, AND video card. Just to get a freakin' PCIe slot.

Why did we need this thing again? For the extra bandwidth to go unused or something?

Meh. As for the death of ultra high end GPU's, I don't care. I'm not the PC gamer that can drop $600-1200 just for my video card solution every 6 months. I'm also not so stupid as to buy a $600-1200 video card setup with the intention of making it last 3 years. I look only for the top midrange cards and lower high end options. The cost to performance ratio sucks harder and harder the higher end you go.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Originally posted by: fierydemise
Am I the only person who sees nVidia as the losers in this whole thing? AMTI is aiming for CGPUs in 2008 which theoretically will be faster then discrete GPUs, intel is very likely working on similar technology and will probably make it a top priority because of this merger. So by 2008 we'll be seeing unified CGPUs from both intel and AMTI which will probably wipe the floor with whatever discrete GPU nVidia offers. Basically nVidia needs to get onboard with a CGPU solution or be left behind. Atleast thats how I see it.

No, you're not the only one. Read Anand's op-ed for one thing. He's pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing.

Crusader seems to think that AMD just wanted to buy off ATI in order to eliminate competition for nVidia.... erm, no....

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Why? They are still keeping their AMD chipset business. They will now probably become the preferred dual card solution for Intel and Conroe. If AMD kills off the high end card buisness they will stand alone at the top. They could even pick up some ex-ATI talent. MS could buy NVIDIA for a huge chunk-o-change.

If anything this could be the best thing to happen to NVIDIA since 3DFX fell apart.

The way I see it nVidia will be left out in the cold with CGPUs, AMTI had already said that is a priority and are aiming for 2008, Intel is no doubt also working on CGPUs. CGPUs will probably replace discrete GPUs thus killing a large portion of nVidia's business. Short term there nVidia probably wins from the buyout but in the long term unless they can get into CGPUs they will be left behind.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: OvErHeAtInG
No, you're not the only one. Read Anand's op-ed for one thing. He's pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing.

Crusader seems to think that AMD just wanted to buy off ATI in order to eliminate competition for nVidia.... erm, no....

I read Anands piece but I was more talking about people posting that nVidia will have a monoploy on highend GPUs or highend gaming dead, etc.

 

[Munky]

I'm highly skeptical of the whole idea that a CGPU can wipe the floor with a discrete high end GPU. Unless it's something that has 1 billion transistors, and comes bundled with its own dedicated PSU and water cooling. Even more so if you take into consideration what kind of high end gpu's might be available in 2008.

 

[akugami]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/07/24/how_it_all_shakes_out_for_4/1.html

Bit-Tech's take on the whole thing.

 

[WelshBloke]

I cant see NV doing very well out of this down the line.

Intel make their own (very good) chipsets for Intel CPU's.
AMD will now be able to make their own chipsets for AMD CPU's.

AMD will now presumably have decent IG options on their boards (speculate x1600 and up)
Intel will respond (Intel has been R+Ding better IG options)

This would leave NV to make money only from 7600 and up products.


That doesnt look good.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Originally posted by: akugami
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/07/24/how_it_all_shakes_out_for_4/1.html

Bit-Tech's take on the whole thing.

Those guys still dont get it. They refer to ATI like it was a merger.
This was a buyout. ATI is no more. Its now AMD with the ATI subsidiary.

We could see a situation where NVIDIA stops interacting with AMD, Intel stops interacting with ATI and the whole thing gets more awkward and incompatible.

Intel is as will stop interacting with "ATI" (which no longer exists as its former self), I think they meant AMD... but theres no reason NV will stop working with either AMD or Intel.

Intel has more reasons than ever to buddy up with SLI-technology-holding Nvidia.
And AMD has a ton at stake if they could somehow convince Nvidia to stop providing SLI chipsets for Intel.

Nvidia and AMD are the biggest winners here.

With NVIDIA playing hardball with SLI licensing, it will most likely have no choice but to keep pushing ATI CrossFire for this generation, although it will have to come up with some interesting messaging. Alternatively, it could ask NVIDIA very nicely for an SLI driving license for its 975X chipset.

Very nicely??? LOL
How about "very desperately and very pricey"?

ATI has been losing money on its graphics card sales to buy marketshare, whilst propping its business up with TV chip and mobile phone chip sales.

So now AMD bought ATI to continue to lose money on its graphics card sales?
So absurd its laughable.

This whole episode puts NVIDIA in between a rock and a hard place.

Yeah I guess if being the sole provider of the only (and best) multiGPU solution is a "bad" spot to find yourself in? Desperately needed by Intel, and with AMD desperate to stop Intel from having it?
So sad for poor Nvidia indeed... :brokenheart:

The CPU+GPU thing is unproven, a bad idea of the very expensive R&D on Cell is any indication, and a ways off. From being introduced and ESP from being adopted.

Regardless of what Bit Tech thinks, you really, truley assume that AMD did this to take on Nvidia and Intel both??
SHeeeeeiiiit.... :roll: Seriously, thats just delusional.

The article itself admits-

It's useful to keep some perspective - high-end gamers are a relatively small section of the market. Sales of super-cards like the Radeon X1900-series and GeForce 7900-series are a fraction of graphics sales, and the major money is in the low end.

So AMD is going to now go after the small high end gamer market where the money isnt at? And compete with the vicious tiger that is Nvidia?? Great strategy!
War on two fronts with two vicious enemies! Worked for Hitler! Oh wait...

ATI is done, and Nvidia and AMD both are still partners.. will continue to be (watch and see if you want to be schooled by Crusader), and AMD made a brilliant move.
BitTech, and others here who want to pretend ATI still exists as it did before just arent getting it.

The only organization truley hurt here was Intel. As far as we know, ATI could have had a disaster on their hands with the difficult to produce/engineer R600 and this was the easy way out.

 

[Gstanfor]

ATI could have had a disaster on their hands with the difficult to produce/engineer R600 and this was the easy way out.

Yes, as I editted into an earlier post:

You have to wonder if this is what Dave Orton meant by his "Who blinks first?" remark concerning the pace of graphics development and the desire of companies to step up to the plate a while back. I think we know the answer now...

I don't think some people truly appreciate just how overjoyed ATi is for this to happen (if the deal somehow falls through, ATi agrees to pay AMD a $162 million termination fee).

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: Crusader

Originally posted by: akugami
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/07/24/how_it_all_shakes_out_for_4/1.html

Bit-Tech's take on the whole thing.

Those guys still dont get it. They refer to ATI like it was a merger.
This was a buyout. ATI is no more. Its now AMD with the ATI subsidiary.

I don't get what you are trying to say. Are you saying that just because ATI is bought out, it somehow becomes irrelevant and any of it's technologies and business dealings is somewow null and void and that any ways it used to make money is somehow not feasable anymore? As the famous line reads...a rose by any other name...

We could see a situation where NVIDIA stops interacting with AMD, Intel stops interacting with ATI and the whole thing gets more awkward and incompatible.

Intel is as will stop interacting with "ATI" (which no longer exists as its former self), I think they meant AMD... but theres no reason NV will stop working with either AMD or Intel.

Intel has more reasons than ever to buddy up with SLI-technology-holding Nvidia.
And AMD has a ton at stake if they could somehow convince Nvidia to stop providing SLI chipsets for Intel.

Nvidia and AMD are the biggest winners here.

There is no way nVidia will stop providing chipsets for Intel because they want a slice of the motherboard chipset market and Intel is a much much larger market than AMD. It's pretty much guaranteed nVidia will have a closer working relationship to combat AMD/ATI. There is also no way nVidia will exit the AMD chipset market since nVidia makes a very good chunk of it's money off of AMD.

In this regard, AMD is definitely going to be pushing ATI mobo chipsets so this actually may be a major loss to nVidia. With a smaller mindshare, this can negatively affect it's mobo chipset sales in the Intel arena. A smaller mindshare may also negatively affect sales of nVidia GPU's. These things usually have a cascading effect. This is all pure speculation though so it might have almost no impact on nVidia. I am just listing possibilities.

ATI has been losing money on its graphics card sales to buy marketshare, whilst propping its business up with TV chip and mobile phone chip sales.

So now AMD bought ATI to continue to lose money on its graphics card sales?
So absurd its laughable.

ATI makes and loses money on it's GPU's on a varying basis. It all depends on sales and generally AMD does about 40% of the GPU market. There are plenty of companies that make money at the end of the fiscal year when it's all added up but have a couple of quarters where they may lose millions of dollars. Too many reasons to list why but I wouldn't count a company as a money loser just because it has a couple of quarters in the red. Once you start hitting 4+ quarters of red then I'd start worrying.

This whole episode puts NVIDIA in between a rock and a hard place.

Yeah I guess if being the sole provider of the only (and best) multiGPU solution is a "bad" spot to find yourself in? Desperately needed by Intel, and with AMD desperate to stop Intel from having it?
So sad for poor Nvidia indeed... :brokenheart:

How can nVidia be the only provider of multi GPU solutions when another company also provides a multi GPU solution. I'm not going to argue about the best part since nVidia's SLI is in general better than Crossfire at this point in time. This can all change with the R600 and G80 since ATI is bound to increase the performance and stability of Crossfire. But even while SLI is better than Crossfire it is by no means perfect or anywhere near it. There are still lots of things to work out. I won't be making any new statements when I say I am not a fan of both SLI and Crossfire.

But as I stated above the reason nVidia is in a rock and a hard place is due to a possibility of AMD pushing the ATI mobo chipsets and likely marketing ATI GPU's in conjunction with AMD CPU's. There is almost no reason for Intel to help nVidia too much since increased sales of nVidia mobo chipsets on the Intel side eats into sales of Intel chipsets. With it being a second class citizen in it's mobo chipset business, it's possible nVidia will notice a decrease in mindshare that can lead to a decrease in overall sales of nVidia products. Again I must emphasize this is pure speculation.

[/quote]The CPU+GPU thing is unproven, a bad idea of the very expensive R&D on Cell is any indication, and a ways off. From being introduced and ESP from being adopted.

Regardless of what Bit Tech thinks, you really, truley assume that AMD did this to take on Nvidia and Intel both?? [/quote]

I think AMD bought ATI to combat Intel and not nVidia. I do think a CPU+GPU is going to be the future. In fact, I agree with some analyst who think AMD buying ATI is moving towards a "CPU on a chip" design. It's going to take a lot of work but the potential payoff is huge. Think about the increased market in smartphones, notebooks, HTPC's, UMPC's, etc. Most computer users do not need the increased performance that enthusiast like those found on Anandtech require/want. A normal user is perfectly happy with a P3 class CPU and something that can play divx or dvd video. For instance, my dad browses the web to read news and watches the occasional news clip. That's roughly it. Let's add a slightly more proficient user and most of what they do is type up the occasional document, read email, play music, and that's roughly it.

And I don't agree with your view on Cell. I think it's an interesting technology and probably the way to go in the future. Not the Cell processor itself but the idea behind Cell. One or two general cores with a few specialized cores depending on the application it's meant to be used for. I just think that Cell is not ready for prime time and should have been left to bake longer.

ATI is done, and Nvidia and AMD both are still partners.. will continue to be (watch and see if you want to be schooled by Crusader), and AMD made a brilliant move.
BitTech, and others here who want to pretend ATI still exists as it did before just arent getting it.

The only organization truley hurt here was Intel. As far as we know, ATI could have had a disaster on their hands with the difficult to produce/engineer R600 and this was the easy way out.

ATI may be done but you have to remember that this is subject to regulatory boards in Canada as well as the USA and also subject to shareholder aproval from both ATI and AMD.

I don't want to be "schooled by Crusader" in light of all the less than coherent or intelligent comments you have made in the past. Everyone makes stupid comments on occasion but you seem to live in your own little reality at times considering some of your comments fly in the face of fact.

I've outlined why this deal is potentially bad for nVidia and you've outlined some of the risks for AMD and ATI. Intel must also be wary of this deal as it has the potential (3+ years down the line) to be a major problem for them. There are lots of risks involved with AMD buying out ATI but there are also plenty of potential gains. You can look at it from only one side and any intelligent person can see where you are coming from but there are other sides to the whole thing that can propel AMD/ATI into a bigger company than either are now and spoken in the same light as Intel and IBM. Bottom line, it's a wait and see situation.